Kevin Nash has further clarified his recent comments about TKO interfering in WWE creative and revealed he personally knows one of the WWE wrestlers who accepted a 50 percent pay cut rather than be released in the post-WrestleMania 42 cuts wave, telling Kliq This listeners that even at the reduced rate, the wrestler is still making “huge money.”
Along with the post-Mania releases, WWE/TKO approached additional wrestlers about restructuring contracts at lower rates in lieu of release. The exact number is unknown. Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods publicly turned the offer down and asked for their releases instead. The identities of any wrestlers who accepted have not been disclosed publicly.
Nash said the math of one specific contract astounded him, but did not name the person.
“I’ve got enough moles in the business where, I mean, I know the people that took 50 percent cuts. I know one of the guys, and when I found out what the person was making, and after I just picked myself up off the ground that he was making that much money, and then realized that even at 50 percent, he was making huge money.”
The Kliq This episode also saw Nash frame his viral comments last week about TKO interfering in WWE creative, where he told the executive team to “get your fucking noses out of creative” and let Paul “Triple H” Levesque do his job. Nash clarified that the comments were not based on anything Levesque told him directly, and that the two have a personal policy of not discussing WWE business with each other.
“One thing Paul and I have never done is we have never talked business. Like, I could not call or text him and say, ‘Hey, what’s going on? Are they fucking [with you]?’ He would never. Because that’s our deal. Because that takes away the trust that he has with the people he works for. So that’s always been, it’s none of my business. It’s none of my business who’s involved in Paul’s everyday life that he works with. Paul’s a big boy. Paul can take care of himself. I just had heard some things, and I don’t know. Maybe I got pissed off last week. Maybe it was just because I did a lot of driving. Maybe I thought I was a wrestler again. Maybe being in a different hotel five nights in a row in a minivan, putting fucking heavy ass bags in the back triggered some post-traumatic stress that I was holding out for during the 30-year run.”
Nash also walked back his TKO criticism, specifically by pointing out that the only TKO executive he has personally interacted with, Ari Emanuel, has been nothing but professional and welcoming.
“The only person I’ve ever met from TKO is Ari. He’s the only one that I’ve ever met. And he was such a gentleman. He came up, he shook my hand. I’ve never been treated better by anyone in management than the way he treated me. He just said, ‘If there’s anything I could do for you, blah, blah, blah, blah.’ And every time I’ve seen him since, he’s the only person I know. He’s the only one. So the other two cats, I don’t know them. I just wanted to lash out at somebody, so they, I don’t know them.”
The Emanuel reference is to TKO CEO Ari Emanuel. The “other two cats” framing presumably refers to TKO President Mark Shapiro and Endeavor leadership without specifying.
If you use quotes from this article, please credit Kliq This with Kevin Nash and include a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.